The Devil of Echo Lake Read online

  The

  Devil

  Of

  Echo lake

  By

  Douglas Wynne

  JournalStone

  San Francisco

  Copyright ©2012 by Douglas Wynne

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  JournalStone books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

  JournalStone

  199 State Street

  San Mateo, CA 94401

  www.journalstone.com

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  ISBN: 978-1-936564-53-8 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-936564-59-0 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-1-936564-60-6 (ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012941729

  Printed in the United States of America

  JournalStone rev. date: October 19, 2012

  Cover Design and Artwork: Jeff Miller

  Edited By: Dr. Michael R. Collings

  Endorsements

  “Ancient gods, haunted forests, the Devil, and Rock & Roll. What more do you need for a great story? The Devil of Echo Lake is a beautifully crafted book that puts a unique spin on the classic tale of Robert Johnson and the crossroads. In the first few pages, Douglas Wynne grabs hold and never lets go. You can’t miss with this fantastic debut.”

  — Brett J. Talley, author of Bram Stoker Award™ finalist That Which Should Not Be and The Void.

  “The Devil of Echo Lake delves into the oh-so-thin interface between reality and the supernatural. Douglas Wynne handles complex issues deftly in this novel. His characters, real and otherwise, ring true. His writing is strong and appropriate to his subjects—temptation, acceptance, realization, and ultimately redemption.”

  — Dr. Michael R. Collings, Author of The Slab, The House Beyond the Hill, and other tales of wonder and fear.

  “Doug delivers the quiet, atmospheric horror that pervades the story with the deft touch of an experienced writer. I may not have heard of Douglas Wynne before I started reading The Devil of Echo Lake, but now that I have finished this excellent debut novel, I can honestly say that I’ll be looking for more of his work in the future.”

  — Joseph Nassise, bestselling author of the Templar Chronicles and the Great Undead War series.

  "This book sings a dark, dark song—it's got a grim rhythm that even rock-and-roll has forgotten. If you're standing at the crossroads and you don't know where to go, take the road that leads you to this book."

  — Chuck Wendig, Author of Blackbirds and Mockingbird.

  Acknowledgements

  I’m very grateful to my early readers for their insightful critiques throughout the drafting process: Jeff Miller, Phil O’Flaherty, Chuck Killorin, Melissa Corliss-DeLorenzo, Sue Little, Jen Salt, Glyn Forster, Stacia Decker, and Jill Sweeney-Bosa. Thanks also to Carol Kutz for making a lifelong reader out of me in the sixth grade, to my grandmother—to whom this book is dedicated—for typing up my first horror stories without batting an eye, to my parents for always supporting my creative endeavors, to Jeff for rocking the cover, to the gnomes who pluck weeds in the story garden at AQ Connect, to Christopher C. Payne and his team at JournalStone for being allies and angels just when I most needed them, to Brett J. Talley for helping me to see the forest for the trees, and most of all to my amazing wife Jen for believing.

  For Barbara Whitehouse

  1927 - 2012

  I'll be looking at the moon, but I'll be seeing you.

  Part I

  Big in Japan

  One

  “In the middle of the journey of life, I came to myself in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost.”

  Dante

  Billy Moon didn’t know exactly when he had sold his soul. There had been no pact penned in blood, no dusty crossroads. Maybe it happened that night on the bridge, the night he met Trevor Rail. Maybe his soul was tucked away in one of those paragraphs of legalese he had skimmed over hungrily in his mid-twenties—his eternal spirit leveraged against mechanical royalties and recoupable advances in a five-point font. I sold my soul, he thought, and it fit. Like a perfect chorus summing up the verses of his life, it rhymed with the rest of him.

  * * *

  On the last day of the Lunatic tour, Billy received a harmless-looking fax that felt like a death sentence. It was from his manager, Danielle Del Vecchio. She had left Japan two days earlier, confident that the final show at the Tokyo Bay NK Hall would go off without a hitch. Billy took the envelope from the bellhop and mumbled, “Domo.” He’d given up trying to tip them, but it still felt weird not to. As the suite door glided shut, he collapsed into a stuffed leather chair. He shook the page free of the envelope, which he tried to fling across the room like a Frisbee, although it disappointed him by flying like a bat.

  Billy,

  Trevor just called to inform us that he has you booked at Echo Lake Studios in upstate NY for the next 2 months. I know it’s short notice, but Gravitas doesn’t mind paying for you to write in the studio this time. It’s a residential studio out in the woods, so you’ll be free of distractions. We’ll fly to NY on 10/30. You’re doing the MTV Halloween show on 10/31, and then I’ll have a limo take you up to the studio on 11/2. Would have just called, but now you have your schedule in writing so you won’t forget. Break a leg tonight!

  xoxo

  Danielle

  Billy let the page flutter to the floor. He took a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table and lit up. The afternoon sun warmed his face and hurt his eyes. He could see his reflection on the dull gray surface of the TV screen: tangled, unwashed hair, black kimono, belly hanging over the waistband of his underwear. He didn’t like the image so he exhaled, banishing it with a breath of smoke.

  Why couldn’t she call him on the phone like she had every other day for the past ten months? So he’d have it in writing? No, she had to fax to tell him he’d be spending the next two months hunting songs for the third album in the woods with Trevor Rail because she knew he was having reservations about Rail. It was just like Danielle to drop the bomb from a safe distance. Just got a phone call from Trevor, my ass. But then, if honesty was to be the word of the day, he had to admit that “reservations” was an understatement. What he felt about Rail was more like pure, undiluted dread.

  He hadn’t talked to her about that in any depth, but if he had, she would have just told him to stop smoking so much pot because it was making him paranoid. And she’d probably be right. Still, could she blame him for being paranoid when he had to divine his fate from some fax while everyone with the decision-making power in his life was on the other side of the world?

  Billy looked at the heavy oak door and remembered where he was. Someone was knocking, and he wasn’t sure how long they’d been at it. The knocking started up again, but now it was deeper. Someone had switched to pounding on the door with the side of a fist.

  “Billy, you better be getting laid 'cause if you’re passed out drunk, I’m gonna have to beat your ass.”

  Flint.

  Billy opened the door. The pressure that had been building in his head over the fax dissipated at the sight of Flint’s mischievous grin—missi
ng tooth, scruffy dimpled cheek, and all.

  The guitarist scanned him from top to bottom and back again, from behind a pair of sunglasses that looked like welders’ goggles. It was a wonder he could see anything at all through them, but he must have because he said, “Christ, Billy, don’t you even dress yourself when Danielle’s not around? Come on, we gotta be at sound check in half an hour. Don’t want to blow it on the last night, do we?”

  Billy gave a half-hearted smile. “No. After all, we’re finally big in Japan.”

  On the way to the limo with Flint, Billy was called over to the front desk by the concierge who had a small package waiting for him, delivered by a local shop. Billy unwrapped it in the back of the car, finding under the brown paper a dragon-themed red and gold silk brocade box with silver clasps.

  “Sexy,” Flint said beside him, looking at what lay on the gold silk lining.

  “A knife,” Billy said, stating the obvious.

  “Not just a knife, bro. That’s an authentic Japanese tanto.”

  Billy picked it up gingerly and turned it over in his hands. The handle was scarlet silk wrapped in a diamond pattern over some black textured material. The silver end-cap on the hilt was engraved with a cherry blossom. Three more flowers in mother-of-pearl adorned the black-lacquered wooden sheath. It was stunning, exuding a graceful, evil beauty.

  “What’s a tanto?” he asked, staring at it.

  “That’s one of the three blades a samurai would carry. My old roommate was way into this shit. Samurai movies every other night. Dude had some replicas too, but nothing like this. That’s real stingray skin on the handle.”

  Billy drew the blade from the sheath and examined it—nine inches of tapered steel that looked sharper than anything he had ever handled in his life.

  “Whoa, dude. Put it away before we hit a bump. That thing is sick. Who’s it from?”

  There was a small envelope in the box. It contained the knife’s registration with the Japanese Ministry of Education and a second card with a sword-smith’s insignia and a typed message:

  Dear Billy,

  A small token to celebrate your recent success on the Japanese charts. Please bring it with you to our sessions. I think it would be brilliant to get some photos of you with it for the cover art. Looking forward to working together again.

  Yours,

  Trevor

  “It’s from Trevor. He wants pictures of me with it.”

  “Cool.”

  “Samurai blade, huh? I thought they carried big swords.”

  “They had three different blades for different jobs. The katana would be for the battlefield—that’s the long one. Then there was a medium size one for close combat, a waki-something-or-other, I forget. And this one here for ritual suicide if they were captured or disgraced.”

  Billy laughed without humor. “I’ve barely even written anything for the next album, and he already knows he wants me posing with a Japanese suicide knife in the artwork.”

  “See that’s what makes ol’ Third Rail a marketing genius. He’s already thinking about how to bridge your new Asian audience with your crazy goth chicks, who like to cut themselves. The crafty fucker.”

  * * *

  They closed the show that night with “I Like to Watch,” a techno-metal song Rolling Stone had called, “a scathing high-decibel diatribe against the vampiristic nature of the news media.” Billy staggered out of a foggy wash of blue lasers as he struck the final chord on his blood-red Les Paul, then slammed his fist down on top of his amplifier, making the spring reverb inside it rattle and shudder in what became a series of explosions echoing throughout the hall. Only when the sound had almost faded did the applause swell up and break over the stage. Exhausted and bathed in sweat, Billy was once again impressed by how intently Japanese audiences listened. In America there was always some drunk guy yelling during a quiet section, but that never happened here.

  He handed the guitar off to Phil, his tech, bowed low to the crowd, and ran down the metal stairs beside the drum riser. A second set of boot heels echoed in the narrow corridor, and he cast a glance over his shoulder at Flint. Looking ahead again, Billy threw his arm out behind him, pointing at the floor somewhere in front of Flint, then swept it forward to point at the double doors at the end of the corridor and the security guard stationed in front of them. He passed the dressing room and heard the guitarist’s steps falter.

  “Where are you going?” Flint called.

  “Out. Come on.”

  “The street? What are you, tripping? You’ll be caught in an autograph mob.”

  “Not if you hurry up. Most of them are still wondering if that was the last encore.”

  “No they’re not. I saw the house lights come up.”

  “Then we really better move.”

  Billy and Flint shoved their shoulders into the doors and pushed through into a clear night sparkling with city lights.

  A small group of Japanese goths flocked up the steps to the exit with CDs and permanent markers held aloft.

  “Billy, I don’t see the car,” Flint said. “I don’t think we’re on the right street.”

  “Don't worry about it. I just want to get some air.”

  “That’s the last thing you’ll get if we hang around here.”

  Billy looked around at the kids. There were five of them, who had probably skipped the last song to stake out this particular exit. Well, they got lucky.

  “Hey, are you all together? Did you come to the show together?” Billy asked as he scribbled a black squiggle across the front of a jewel case.

  They all started talking at once, and he couldn’t make out a coherent sentence, so he said, “Who has a car?”

  A muscular kid wearing a wife-beater and a small silver cross on a chain said, “I have a van.”

  Billy noticed that this kid was the only rocker among the goths, with their black clothes, makeup and dyed hair. This one looked like most of the Japanese rock fans he’d seen, a walking advertisement for American corporations: Converse sneakers, Levi’s jeans, pack of Marlboros poking out of the pocket of a plaid shirt, unbuttoned to reveal the beater and the cross. Totally Americanized from his smokes to his personal savior.

  “Where’s it parked? I want to get out of here.”

  One of the goth girls started jumping up and down, tugging at the bottom of her sweater. The kid with the van smiled. He looked at Flint, “You coming too?”

  Flint glanced at Billy. “This is not a good idea, bro. It’s Tokyo, for fuck's sake. I couldn’t read a train map if I had to.”

  “You’re such an old lady,” Billy said. Then to the rocker kid, “It’s our last night here. Take us some place interesting. Show us something we can’t see at home.”

  “Where’s home?” the kid asked. He seemed way too cool for the situation. Billy decided he must not be a fan, just a ride for some of these other kids. When the jumping girl settled down and clasped her arms around the rocker’s bicep, Billy decided she was probably his sister. There was a resemblance.

  “Good question. Flint, where is home? New York? I have a house in San Francisco. Fuck, I don’t know. I think the Hilton is home.”

  The kid laughed and said, “Man, this place want to be New York, and you have shit in California you won’t find here, but I can definitely show you something you don’t see at Hilton.”

  “Well then I guess it’s not anything sexual. I’m game. Flint?”

  “Man, you’re in a dangerous mood.”

  Billy just grinned.

  “Yeah, I’m game.” Flint sighed.

  “Kiyoi,” the kid said over his shoulder. “Tell your friends they have to take the train home.”

  “Why can’t they come too?” she whined.

  “Not enough room. And your idol want to see something exotic. I’m not taking a bunch of kids.”

  “Where we taking them?”

  To Billy it sounded like the kid said, “Tosainnuring.”

  The girl gasped. “That’s so c
ool. Guys, you have to go home.” This was met with groans of complaint. “Give me your CDs. Maybe they sign them in the van. Come, come on, give them to me. I’ll call you guys tomorrow. I promise.”

  The rocker, who said his name was Munetaka, trotted across the street and unlocked a white van. Billy, Flint, and Kiyoi followed.

  The city dwindled behind them until a few faint stars could be seen twinkling through a veil of smog over Mount Fuji. Billy had feared the drive might be one of those regrettable private moments with a fan in which he was deluged with questions, but Kiyoi was deadly silent after he and Flint signed the stack of CDs. Her English was good, but she appeared to be too afraid of saying something stupid to venture any conversation at all. Billy considered breaking the ice just to put her at ease, but after singing for two hours, his voice was hoarse and he was content not to use it if he didn’t have to.

  When the van stopped, Flint pulled the door open. They found themselves in a pockmarked, muddy lot in front of a warehouse with blacked out windows, somewhere south of the city. A couple of orange sodium lights poured their jaundiced glow over the lot, illuminating cars whose riders’ muted voices could be faintly heard from somewhere inside the cinder-block building. Shouting and cheering seeped through the cracks in the walls, mingling in the cool, quiet night with the ringing in Billy’s ears.

  Munetaka rapped his knuckles on a door Billy hadn’t noticed. It opened to reveal a lean Japanese man in mechanic’s overalls. Munetaka rolled up the sleeve of his flannel shirt and flashed a tattoo Billy couldn’t quite make out. It might have been a stylized animal mask like the ones on totem poles. The doorman waved them in.